0 AD - free real-time strategy collects money on Indiegogo

Wildfire Games is a group of independent developers located all over the world that has been developing an open-source strategy for more than 4 years called 0 AD The game resembles the popular Age of Empires, which was the source of inspiration for the authors. Initially, the game had a closed code, but in 2008 the company decided to change the development model and laid out the code under GPL 2+, and the game content under CC-BY-SA. The game is developed for Windows, OS X and Linux.

Initially, 10-15 people participated in the project, but now the team has grown greatly - up to a hundred people. Many of them are not consistently involved in the development of the game, some are limited to a single contribution, but over the years, the main development team has been formed, which is ready to persevere.
')
The game features 10 civilizations: Athens, Macedonia, Sparta, Britons, Gauls, Iberian tribes, Carthage, the Persian Empire, the Roman Republic and the Mauryan Empire. At the end of the campaign, it is planned to introduce Hellenistic Egypt and the Seleucid state. By the way, the names of objects for all civilizations are written in their own languages.



The gameplay is similar to any historical RTS. There are several types of resources: food, wood, stone and iron ore. More than 16 types of buildings, unique for each nation and more than thirty models of units, among which are cavalry, several types of infantry, fleet, as well as various animals that serve as a food source. On the maps it is possible to leave objects-treasures, which are a wealth of resources.

It is also possible to unite with opponents in alliances and maintain market relations. There are no trading routes like in AoE, but the game is in the alpha stage and in the final version it is possible to add a huge number of features that are not there now. The name 0 AD itself refers to a period that did not exist, since according to the modern calendar after 1 year BC Immediately goes 1 year of our era, and zero is skipped.

The main motivation of developers - to bring the spirit of the good old RTS, which, unfortunately, is becoming less and less.
The game plans multiplayer using NAT Migration, that is, in case of a sudden shutdown of the server, the match will still continue with the efforts of other players. Object models are created in Blender, work on the animation of units is also underway.

Several people work on the music in the game: composers Omri Lahav and Jeff Willet, flutist Martha McCave and many others. Already available 27 tracks in ethnic style, which can be heard on Bandcamp.



You can rate the alpha version of the game right now by downloading it from play0ad.com .

In my opinion, this campaign is the best chance to prove that free games can and should be crowdfucted: we get a completely transparent development process, which, thanks to the budget collected, can be played by game-building professionals and greatly accelerate the creation process. The authors of 0 AD set a rather ambitious goal: 160 thousand dollars. This is a high bar for open source and medium for commercial projects with Kickstarter. In terms of composition and dedication of the 0 AD team, it is ahead of many of these projects. By the amount of work already done - as well.

So let's help them!

Game page on Indiegogo